Rainbow Gym Shoes
by Hakhin
Summary: She puts them on not because she likes the colours or the fact that they're actually the most comfortable shoes she's ever owned. She doesn't put them on because she was ordered too or anything silly like that for that matter. She puts them on because her son gave them to her for her birthday and that means something.


**A/N: **I actually heard the lyrics 'rainbow coloured gym shoes' in a song... of which I have no idea now but the instant I heard that I came up with this... lol. Enjoy.

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She puts them on not because she likes the colours or the fact that they're actually the most comfortable shoes she's ever owned. She doesn't put them on because she was ordered too or anything silly like that for that matter. She puts them on because her son gave them to her for her birthday and that means something.

She walks around SHIELD's headquarters with them on and she knows that all the other agents and the new recruits too are always staring at them and at her. She knows what they're saying when she walks past them even though they try their hardest to whisper to each other at the barely audible level. She is after all a highly trained assassin and a spy, but mostly now days just another Avenger.

She knows on occasion Fury has even eyed them and in other occasions Tony actually commented on them. But she doesn't mind because she pretty much doesn't listen to 95% of what Tony says because it's either useless garble or he's rambling on about something incredibly cute that Pepper did the other day. It's not that she doesn't like that woman or enjoy her company too because after spending days on end stuck with five men on a mission, the time spent with Pepper after that was like a heaven sent.

She will never actually publically admit it but she did love the shoes. She had to admit the colours were probably a bit out there and the fact that her, of all people wore them, only made it worse. But they were also really comfortable and either her son had a seriously good eye for good comfortable shoes or his father had something to do with it. She suspected the later because all of sundry knew that their son cared more about his little toy bow and arrows and his little plastic throwing knives too more than he did about what shoes his mother wore to training.

She still found the entire notion of her son being explicitly skilled for his age with his little bow and arrow and plastic knives disturbing. She just wanted and hoped that he would grow up and become something simple like a store manager or maybe a doctor or a lawyer. She wanted him to have the 9 to 5 kind of job, the one that didn't require him to risk his life on a daily basis or require him to have to spend every other second of his off days training like there was no tomorrow. She didn't want him to have to go through all the heart ache and all the pain and torture that she and his father had been through and still regularly go through.

She wanted something normal for him but as much as she will always wish for that, she sort of knew the instant she held him in her arms that he was going to be anything but normal.

He was going to grow up with a man that had a suit made out entirely of metal and could carry enough fire power to crumble at least 50 buildings before the low ammo alert would actually be triggered. He was going to live with a man that would sometimes literally turn green, grow about three times his size and punch down half a building just because he was angry. He was going to be the nephew of a god, more specifically the god of thunder who most of the time didn't even live on the same planet as them. He was going to find that spending hours on end playing in a red and white striped shield with a star in the middle would be more fun than playing with his toy cars.

But she also knew that one day he would know that his daddy is Hawkeye and his mummy is Black Widow. He would learn that his mummy and daddy combined probably had enough enemies to fill a 20 story building. He wouldn't understand for the longest time why his mummy and daddy had to be away from him regularly for a week or two at times. He would only know how to learn that it was okay because they'll come back soon normally with a bruise or two or a broken hand or leg, but they'd have gifts with them so everything would always be okay after that. He would also learn that his aunty Pepper is really cool not because she's the CEO to Stark Industries, but that she actually genuinely is an awesome aunt who takes him to the candy shop to pick up at least 5 different kinds of lollies or chocolate just so that he wouldn't spend all his time wanting his mummy and daddy to come home.

In all of her life this was probably the one thing that she never thought she would have. For a long time, it was something she actually wished she would never have. It wasn't because she didn't want children or a little person that she could help shape and teach how to be a better person. She didn't want the risks involved with being who she was get in the way of that. She didn't want to be in the field or in the middle of a battle telling herself that she had to make it out of there so that she could make it home. She didn't want to worry, to need and want to do anything other than complete the mission.

But she did and she actually realized that it wasn't all that bad. It wasn't strange to want or to need. She learned this when she fell in love with him and she only understood it when their little son was born. But it was all okay.

It was okay to walk down the halls of SHIELD's headquarters or on occasion the Avenger's Towers with her rainbow coloured gym shoes. It probably threw her whole Black Widow character out of the window and probably gave new recruits the wrong impression. But she loves her son and she loves her sons father too.

She loves that she is able to love her little family and know that when she finishes training she'll return to find them either in their room or in the Avenger's Towers common room playing something. If it wasn't playing another one of Tony's self-made video games then it was probably their little son running around the room playing 'Hawkeye' and shooting all the so called 'Super Heroes' with his little toy bow and arrow.

She loves knowing that after a long and tedious mission, they'll return home to their little boy. She loves that their little son will run at them with his arms wide and smiles plastered on his face as he throws his little arms around the both of them. She loves that together, they'll stand there and hug each other like a normal little family does. She loves that in that moment they forget entirely who they are or what they do or what they have done only hours ago. She loves that in that moment it's just them, right there and that's all that matters.

But she loves that every morning when she sits on the stool to pull on her rainbow coloured gym shoes, he'll be sitting next to her pulling on the identical ones that their little son gave him for his birthday too.

They'll walk together down the halls of the Avenger's Towers hand in hand with their rainbow coloured gym shoes on and every so often Tony will laugh at them for being so silly. But instead of throwing glares at him or threatening to chop his balls off or something drastic like that, they'll smile and tell him not to be to smiley for long because one day they're pretty sure his daughter is going to fall in love with their son. That normally starts a heated discussion which results in them actually carrying out training in the hallways much to Pepper's dismay.

But every so often when they are asked to speak to the new recruits at their first training session, they'll stand before them in the training room with their rainbow coloured gym shoes on. They'll tell them that it's okay to love, that it's okay to need and to want too. They'll tell them that as long as you know what it is you have to do for your mission and as long as you know the risks and accept them and live with them, then there's nothing in the world that'll ever stop you.


End file.
